How did Derren Brown predict the Lotto numbers ?

[Nik]

A bit late I know but did anyone else on here catch the show on Wednesday night ?

YouTube - Derren Brown Lottery Prediction (Live) In HQ

Loads of different theories on the net as to how he actually did it but all will be revealed tonight at 9pm on 4. Will definitely be worth watching.

[Defblade]

all will be revealed

Like hell. Possibility #4 - it's a trick. Internet feeling is a camera trick, which he said he would never use, so maybe he's lying one time or the other. However, all those people in the room had no proof at all that he used "their" numbers - they didn't see them before, he didn't leave a "sealed envelope" copy of them - they just believed. Only thing I found interesting was that the "wisdom of crowds" came up with numbers that weren't 25,25,25,25,25,25 +- a couple maybe, but then 24 did seem like a low n for doing stats with - the fair he quoted at the start had 800ish guesses, and at a single, very different, known end point (weight of single item) rather than 6 random ones.

I think his suggested plan for #3 Fix The Machine would only stack the oods, not make them certain as there's too much motion in the machine for even heavy balls to definately be winners.

The heads or tails thing I'm guessing comes back to the Monty Hall problem - ie, non-intuative results of probability.

[Nik]

Hmm I wasn't holding out much hope of him revealing how he did it either. Of course the whole thing is just more publicity but thats what makes people watch it I suppose.